Parking tickets soar 50% in a year

Motorists have been hit by a shocking 50 per cent increase in parking fines.

The number of tickets issued outside London rose from 1.4million to 2.1million in a year as more councils called in private wardens.

Motoring groups accused councils of shameless profiteering and using motorists as "easy pickings".

And they warned of a backlash from drivers who already pay massive petrol duty and face Europe's most extensive network of speed cameras.

Over the whole country, drivers are now paying at least £350million a year in fines.

Dramatic rise in tickets

The dramatic rise in tickets was revealed by the National Parking Adjudication Service. Its survey covers every area where councils have taken over responsibility for parking from police, a trend which began ten years ago.

Nearly all use private firms and set them targets for issuing tickets. As a result, firms have been accused of blitzing drivers to ensure they keep the lucrative contracts.

In some areas, wardens have been sacked for failing to meet street quotas.

Tony Vickers, campaign manager at the Association of British Drivers, said: "Motorists are being persecuted for trivial parking offences - it's easy pickings.

"If there is a financial incentive to prosecute people, it is bound to lead to abuses."

Massive increase in revenue

RAC spokesman Susie Haywood said motorists would be angered that spending on public transport has gone down, despite councils' massive increase in revenue from fines.

She said: "People use their cars because they don't feel public transport is convenient, safe or reliable.

"They might expect that the millions from parking fines might be ploughed into public transport to persuade them to leave their cars at home. Until that happens, people will keep relying on their cars and the problem is just going to get worse."

The National Parking Adjudication Service report showed that the number of tickets issued outside London in the year to March 2003 was 2,156,813 - up 50 per cent from the previous year's total of 1,436,530.

Appeals doubled

The number of appeals almost doubled, to 4,500, and two-thirds of them were successful.

They included a bus at a stop in Salford, a funeral limousine outside an undertaker's in Manchester and a woman who spent longer than anticipated in a Poole hospital - because she went into labour.

The service's league table of towns and cities was topped by Birmingham, where 164,000 tickets were issued - more than double the previous year's tally of 73,000.

Brighton came second with 161,000, followed by Manchester with 138,000.

Drivers were least likely to get a ticket in Christchurch, Dorset, where just 592 fell foul of wardens.

The figures for tickets issued outside London have risen sharply each year since 1996, when Winchester became the first provincial council to bring in private parking wardens.

Bitter complaints

Motorists have been complaining bitterly that they are being hounded - or even given unjustified tickets - under the new system.

One of the worst cases was in Manchester, where the city council terminated a £20million contract with the private firm Control Plus after allegations that wardens were indiscriminately handing out tickets to meet quotas.

Staff had been given booklets telling them which streets should yield the biggest tallies. One area was said to have "plenty of potential if worked the right way" and another was "small but productive".

One Control Plus worker handed out 101 tickets in a day - which all had to be cancelled because he forgot it was a bank holiday.

Priorities

Wardens controlled by police issue far fewer tickets, as their priority is to keep traffic moving.

Despite the sharp rise in tickets in the provinces, London wardens still issue twice as many as the rest of the country put together.

But the annual increase in the capital was just 172,000 because London boroughs began employing private firms as soon as it was allowed by law in 1994, so the streets have been swamped by wardens for years.